Method
The Rising rank
Each company gets a signal score out of 100: a sum of points from public facts, each capped, so no single fact dominates. Rising is that score times how recent the company's newest cohort is (full weight for a cohort in the last year, two years back counts 0.56, five years 0.24, never below 0.15). Ties go to the larger team, then the newer cohort. Other orders: Newest, Most funded, A to Z.
| Part | Up to | How | Rows |
|---|---|---|---|
| Funding raisedFunding (funding.fru.dev)30 x log10(1 + raised in $M) / 2: $1M gives 4.5, $10M gives 15.6, $99M or more gives 30. Rounds dated from the program on (all rounds when the program date is unknown). | 30 | 30 x log10(1 + raised in $M) / 2: $1M gives 4.5, $10M gives 15.6, $99M or more gives 30. Rounds dated from the program on (all rounds when the program date is unknown). | |
| Notable roundFunding (funding.fru.dev)6 when a round on file was led by a well-known investor (a short fixed list on this page). | 6 | 6 when a round on file was led by a well-known investor (a short fixed list on this page). | |
| Open source tractionRepos (repos.fru.dev)15 x log10(1 + GitHub stars) / 5: 1k stars gives 9, 100k gives 15. | 15 | 15 x log10(1 + GitHub stars) / 5: 1k stars gives 9, 100k gives 15. | |
| Team sizeYC's directory14 x log10(1 + team) / log10(501): 10 people give 5.4, 100 give 10.4, 500 or more give 14. | 14 | 14 x log10(1 + team) / log10(501): 10 people give 5.4, 100 give 10.4, 500 or more give 14. | |
| HiringTitles (titles.fru.dev), YC8 x log10(1 + open roles) / 2 from public job boards (100 roles gives 8); 2 when YC only marks the company as hiring. | 8 | 8 x log10(1 + open roles) / 2 from public job boards (100 roles gives 8); 2 when YC only marks the company as hiring. | |
| TrendingTrending (trending.fru.dev)4 plus 1 per day in the Trending top list, up to 8. | 8 | 4 plus 1 per day in the Trending top list, up to 8. | |
| Product launchesReleases (releases.fru.dev)3 per release in the last year on Releases, up to 6. | 6 | 3 per release in the last year on Releases, up to 6. | |
| OutcomeYC, program pages, AcquisitionsPublic 8, acquired 4 (per YC or the program page), YC Top Company 6. The larger one counts. | 8 | Public 8, acquired 4 (per YC or the program page), YC Top Company 6. The larger one counts. | |
| Seen across fru.devthe registry (companies.fru.dev)1 per other fru.dev tracker with a page on the company, up to 4. | 4 | 1 per other fru.dev tracker with a page on the company, up to 4. | |
| More than one programthis site3 when the company went through two or more programs. | 3 | 3 when the company went through two or more programs. | |
| Programthis siteUp to 4 for the program itself, kept light on purpose. | 4 | Up to 4 for the program itself, kept light on purpose. |
The parts add to 106; the total is capped at 100. An inactive company keeps a quarter of its score. Notable leads: Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, a16z, Benchmark, Accel, Greylock, Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Lightspeed, General Catalyst, Founders Fund, Thrive Capital, Khosla, GV, Google Ventures, Insight Partners, Tiger Global, Coatue, Bessemer, Redpoint, NEA, Felicis, Spark Capital, Union Square Ventures, First Round, Conviction, Elad Gil, SoftBank, IVP, Iconiq. Program weights: 500 Global 2, YC 4, speedrun 3, Arc 3, AI Grant 3, HF0 3, Embed 3, Neo 3, SPC 3, Techstars 2, EF 2, Antler 2, Pear 2, Alchemist 2, AWS GenAI 2, Google 2, SkyDeck 2, Seedcamp 2, Betaworks 2, Z Fellows 2, CDL 2, Station F 2, any other program 1.
The rank shows what is visible in public data: a company with no funding news, no public repositories and no job board scores low even if it is doing well. It is not a judgement of the company and not investment advice. Rows on fru.dev trackers are matched by the company's domain.
Program dates
- Offers, locations, cadence, batches, deadlines and demo days come from each program's own pages (its site, blog or newsroom), with the page linked on every date.
- A date the program has not published yet is shown only when past batches follow a clear pattern, marked "est." with the pattern in a note. A published date always replaces it.
- Acceptance rates and class sizes appear only where the program publishes them.
- Companies come from a program's public portfolio or batch pages where robots.txt and the terms allow it, never from behind a login. Techstars' terms do not allow automated collection, so its companies are not read.
- Hand-checked research loads are marked as research and never counted as new companies.
More on sources and dedupe: Sources. Dates as JSON: /api/deadlines.